


set the spiral in motion

by themikeymonster



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Cuddling, Enemies to Friends, Gen, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Tony Stark is Too Old For This, a cuddling for warmth fic where they actually j u s t cuddle, look this is tony stark and bucky barnes: the baggage is kind of amazing okay, with the possibility for further development
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 12:42:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12254610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themikeymonster/pseuds/themikeymonster
Summary: Tony and Bucky get stranded in the middle of nowhere in a snowstorm. A genius who has been in this situation a few times already and a man who has lived on the run from every government in the world can probably figure out a way to survive this with their dignity intact, right? Right?"What," he says, going even heavier on the accent, "you afraid of a little cuddlin'?""No," Stark says again with the kind of swiftness and certainty that makes it sound more like the opposite.





	set the spiral in motion

The wooden door gives easily under the weight of Bucky's metal hand; he barely puts any effort into at all, in fact. The nails holding the hinges pull out easily without cracking the wood: small favors. They'll have to find some way of keeping the door up before the storm blows in full force. 

"Looks like it's a good thing you brought that doorstop with you," he says, getting a good look inside the building. He wasn't expecting much from a shed in the middle of nowhere, America, which was good or otherwise he'd be sorely disappointed. Everything inside it was either dust or rust, with only vague impressions of the tools they used to be left behind - probably already broken and thus abandoned. 

"My suit is not a doorstop," Stark says. Bucky is mostly past being impressed that Stark always finds breath to complain with, no matter how exhausted or near death he is, and yet. 

Turning, he watches Stark stubbornly drag the hundreds of pounds of metal suit through the snow. Frost has gathered on the edges of his hair and beard, and there are snowflakes in his lashes. When Bucky had firmly refused to drag the suit himself - he understood and supported Stark's abhorrence of anyone getting their hands on his tech, but there were lines - he'd fully expected Stark to reluctantly leave it behind. Stark was getting older. He shouldn't even be on the field, but Bucky is learning that  _ 'should' _ rarely impacted  _ 'is' _ where Stark is concerned. He isn't entirely sure how he manages to keep attracting stupid, stubborn assholes like this. 

Stark finally comes to a stop at the front if the shed, his breath coming in shallow wisps of fog compared to the thick clouds Bucky's been giving. He thinks he'll just give in early and help haul the suit next time. "But," Stark says breathlessly as he glances around, "you might have a point."

"Didn't nearly give yourself a heart attack for nothing," Bucky agrees, moving around to help him get the suit inside the shed. 

Stark grasps restlessly at his chest, looking wan and distracted. "Yeah right," he says, "my heart's never been better." 

Bucky doesn't call him on the transparent lie. Iron Man can hold his own, no problem, but it doesn't ease Bucky's mind to know that unlike him and Steve, Stark's just a man and one with heart problems at that. He's already had a few minor heart attacks, not that the Avengers are supposed to know that; most don't Bucky reasons. Him and Natasha might be the only ones that do, given the amount of attention both of them pay the small details. Iron Man is going to get Tony Stark killed. 

But not today, not freezing to death in the middle of a field, not if Bucky can help it. The suit of armor is heavier and more unwieldy than Stark makes it look, and Bucky doesn't think of all the occasions he might have been dragging it around in the snow to know how to do it so easily. Stark rights the door and Bucky lifts the armor under the armpits, resting it up against it to hold it shut against the wind. He has the uncanny sensation of there being two men in the shed with him - Iron Man and Stark. The suit, still and silent and dark, reminds him of a coffin. 

The shed isn't huge and there's not a lot of stuff in it, but Bucky digs through the deletrius, kicking things over and searching for anything that might help in this situation. There's an old blue tarp that disintegrates beneath his fingers, and then he finds an old dusty canvas. It smells awful, like oil and gasoline, and it's stiff, but he figures it's probably better than Stark's flightsuit. 

Turning, he sees that Stark is still fiddling with his suit, having cracked the head and chest of it open. He has to stop every few seconds to try breathing feeling back into his fingertips. Shivers make his body tremble violently. Bucky can't tell exactly how cold it is in the shed, for a normal human being. He knows it's cold and he hates it, but for him the shiver response won't kick in until his body temperature reaches frostbite levels. Stark's shivers could be from the cold, insulated suit or no, or it could be psychological. 

Thanks to all his government mandated therapy, Bucky's come to realize what a hornet's nest of fucking issues the entire Avengers team is, Steve and Stark in particular. 

"Anything?" Bucky asks. 

Stark huffs, tensing further in an effort to hide his trembling. "Unfortunately, all systems are still down. This isn't a matter of getting the power source reconnected, or systems, or rebooting the whole thing. They fried everything." 

"Okay." Bucky cocks his head, listening to the wind howling outside. "The storm's gettin' worse. Temperature's probably gonna drop some more when it starts in earnest." Stark doesn't react as Bucky shakes out the canvas. It's not a particularly big square. It would keep one person off the ground and wrapped up. One and a half if they squeezed. He kicks clean the corner that gets the least amount of draft from the ruined door, scraping the bottom of his boot over the dirt to get rid of any sharp, rusted pieces of metal that might be hiding. "Stark," he says at last. 

Stark shrugs his shoulder up to his ear. He's shifted on his feet a bit, keeping his back dead center to Bucky. Stark's a fucking careless, reckless, rash civilian, but it means something at least; Bucky's not entirely surprised that Stark has managed to trust that Bucky won't kill him the moment his back is turned, but that's worrisome in it's own way.

"Stark," he says again. "Ain't neither of us exactly happy with the cold. Give the suit a rest until after the storm passes. If we're lucky, the team will find us soon enough." 

The way that Stark's breath quivers is difficult to hear over the howling winds. Bucky can't see his hands, but he sees how Stark's forearms flex as he clenches his fists repeatedly. He gives a moment to say a silent prayer that Stark won't have some kind of attack or breakdown while they're in the middle of nowhere and now somewhat trapped in a rotting wooden shed in the middle of a field. 

Sam's a bit of an asshole, but it reminds him of the Commandos, so Bucky says, "have a psychological break on your own time, Stark. I'd like to survive this mess. Not even you can fix your suit with no tools and sausages for fingers." 

Stark swivels on his heels to give him a narrow look, but at least the crisis is averted. "And what do you suggest we do in the meantime, Han Solo?"

Bucky ignores the name, like he does most of Stark's quips. It's better not to let on that he doesn't get the reference. "Not sure about you, but I'm not interested in freezing much," he says. "Com'ere."

In one sweep, Stark's eyes go from him to the canvas to the corner he's cleared out. His eyes narrow suspiciously, but the twist of his mouth is all disbelief. "And," he says slowly, "what? Exactly?" 

Bucky arched his brow. "Mister Pop Culture Reference, and you're drawin' a blank on this one?" he drawls doubtfully, going heavy on the accent that's no longer natural for him. "What do you think I'm suggestin' here, Stark?"

"No," Stark says concisely, disengaging all prim and proper to turn back to his suit. 

Normally, he wouldn't push, but this isn't one of Stark's hard 'no's. He might have pushed anyway, given the situation - the cold won't do either of their mental states any good, and Bucky wouldn't hesitate to sidle up to Sam in this situation, even if Sam wouldn't let it go for the next ten years. But this is also  _ Stark, _ and even if they both hate it, Bucky feels a bit responsible for him. If HYDRA hadn't made the man part of his carnage, then what  _ Steve _ had done in Bucky's name would have. 

"What," he says, going even heavier on the accent, "you afraid of a little cuddlin'?" 

"No," Stark says again with the kind of swiftness and certainty that makes it sound more like the opposite. "But I normally draw the line at cuddling people who have tried to kill me."

"Fair enough, but I'm not tryina kill you right now, so what's your policy on cuddlin' killers to save your skin?" 

Stark does something with the suit that makes him hiss and jerk back, shaking his hand briefly before sticking the tips of his fingers into his mouth, breathing heavily on them. Shaking the hand again, he tucks it briefly under his arm. "Of everything that has ever happened to me," he mutters. "This has to be the most surreal moment of my life. You'd think it would be being hit by my own bombs, or going through a portal into space, or accidentally creating genocidal robots - but no, it's this moment. This one right here, with a seventy year old frozen assassin using the world  _ cuddle. _ "

"Sounds like a Monday," Bucky says; Stark's a bit of an asshole, but him trying to hurt Bucky's feelings doesn't even register on the 'terrible things that have happened to James Barnes' scale. 

"It is actually Friday," Stark says, rising to his feet. "I should be at home in my cozy, warm tower, with a cup of hot chocolate - I don't even like hot chocolate - with all my  _ tech, _ keeping an eye out on the kid, but  _ no. _ Instead I'm here in Middle America, stranded with a dead suit and the Abominable Snowman." 

"Yeah, I'm missin' my shows, too," he says dryly, spreading the canvas out on the floor. "Don't worry, sweetheart, I'll still respect you in the morning."

"You'd have to respect me now for that to work," Stark grumbles. 

Bucky doesn't dignify that with a response. He does, is the problem. He has the awful feeling that he might be one of the few that does, but that way lays depression and madness, and Bucky has enough of that without borrowing trouble on Stark's behalf. Stark doesn't like people touching his things anyway, so it's not like he'd appreciate it. 

Getting them both down on the canvas is a bit of a hilarious misadventure, but Bucky's been in worse situations and so has Stark. Stark proceeds to try to take up the least amount of space possible in a situation where there's not enough space for both of them anyway, to which Bucky says nothing he's got is contagious anyway, which earns an elbow in his side and Stark leveling a flat look at him. 

"The whole idea is to stay warm, Stark, which isn't gonna happen with you over there," he says. 

"Like you're not hanging half out anyway," Stark says, and given that he's already propped up a little bit, he leans over and eyeballs Bucky's arm. "Pretty sure that goes all the way in, which means it's going to bring down your core temperature the colder it gets." 

"I know how my arm works, Stark," Bucky says flatly, even though Stark isn't wrong. But Stark isn't as resilient to the cold as Bucky is, and Bucky has a  _ therapist, _ so any damage done can be recovered from eventually. There's no way he's letting Stark that close to it, anyway. "Get down, you're letting the heat out." 

They haven't been under the canvas sheet long enough for there to be heat, and the look that Stark gives him speaks volumes of it. "Well," he says decisively. "I've had weirder Friday nights." 

That said, Stark wiggles over and shimmies up on top of Bucky, fighting with the canvas until he's pulled the extra slack up and over them. Bucky can't help but tense, although he doesn't fling Stark off, so that's something; this close, he can feel even the smallest shiver that shakes through Stark's tense frame. 

Despite the tension, Stark's carefully settled himself over Bucky's right side, steering clear of putting weight anywhere near the junction of Bucky's flesh and the metal of the arm. It takes a few moments for Bucky's lungs to unlock. He kind of appreciates the way Steve and Sam don't shy away from it, but Steve is especially bad about putting his hand right on the juncture and - the pressure isn't great. And Steve's trying so hard that Bucky isn't sure how to say that it hasn't healed properly, might never, doesn't have the structure for it to support itself and while it doesn't bleed or anything, it burns hot red like an infection. If he opens his mouth, something too sharp and too mean will come out, and he doesn't want to deal with the fallout of that. 

Bucky still hasn't relaxed when the tight shivers shaking Stark are interrupted with a shudder. The canvas is crap, but it's doing it's work; Stark's warming up a bit. His right hand automatically curls around the back of Stark's shoulders, pulling him a bit closer. He doesn't say anything about the frozen fingers he can feel prying into his uniform, seeking warmth. Stark must be feeling extra vulnerable, as quiet as he's being - he's got two settings where that's concerned: vulnerable but cornered, so he snaps rude, abusive bullshit, and the weak kind of vulnerable that Bucky's more accustomed to seeing on dying men, who'll take comfort from anyone, cry for their mothers with tears in their eyes even to an enemy soldier if that soldier will just hold them through their death. 

And so does Stark, easing in increments from barely tolerating laying at Bucky's side to curling into him, face tucked into the dip between his right shoulder and chest. He's still a bit tense, like he expects Bucky to kick him off, despite the fact that Bucky was the one pushing for it. He's not kicking Stark  _ anywhere _ \- Stark might not be making him as warm as he's making Stark, but having a human body pressed against his is doing wonders for reminding him that he's not about to be flash frozen again. 

It isn't anything at all like laying around with Steve. Not like when they were kids and Bucky would tuck him, all bony angles and edges that would cut, under his arm. Not like now when he's a glorified teddy bear, for all that Steve keeps trying to make himself small and tuck into Bucky shoulder like he fit there and only giving himself a crick in the neck and a knot in his back. 

Bucky had taunted Stark with the world 'cuddle,' but it's not much of a taunt anymore with Stark cautiously curled into his side and his knee pressed over Bucky's thigh like the most tentative, sneaky version of a trap he could devise on short notice. Stark is a bit crazy, Bucky's noticed; people keep using Bucky to hurt him, and yet after his Rhodes, Bucky might be the Avenger that Stark mistrusts the least. Stark works with any of them, grudgingly, but compared to the others, he works best with Bucky - a consequence of both of them trying to stay out of each other's way, maybe, but the results speak for themselves. 

Something unsettling but familiar rattles through Bucky's bones, dances along his nerves, something aching and pathetic and ravenous. His thumb worries the insulated fabric of Stark's flight suit. He wants to curl further into the rough canvas, to seek out the meager heat collected between their bodies. It's easier to sit back and count off the problem the Avengers have, one by one, than to acknowledge the ones his therapist gently tries to point out in himself. 

"What are you doing?" Stark asks, careful and cautious, into his shoulder. 

_ Cuddling you, _ Bucky doesn't say. "Shouldn't a genius like you be able to tell?" 

"I'm trying to compare notes." 

Stark hasn't tensed up or pulled back, despite the wariness in his voice. Hugging on Steve is great and all, but it doesn't invoke this weird  _ want _ in his limbs the way this does - this need to pull him closer, to gentle his own body and coax the same out of Stark. 

What  _ is _ he doing? It's a good question. Stark is a brittle, reckless asshole of a civilian who can't leave well enough alone and claims to be a non-combatant up one side and down the other and insists on climbing into suits he doesn't need to be inside to pilot anyway. He's also brilliant and passionate and has gained both Bucky's respect and admiration despite the blood spilled between them.

"Well, right now, I'm keeping warm, which is the plan," he says at last. "But I'm thinking I don't have any plans for next Friday, and hot chocolate and watching the spider kid figure things out sounds pretty good." 

Stark doesn't reply for a second, and then he says, dry and sarcastic, "seriously?" 

"Yeah," Bucky says. The worse thing Stark will be inclined to do is say no and not let it go for a few weeks until he gets bored or something more interesting blows up in Bucky's face. 

"You do remember who is laying on you here, right?" Stark asks incredulously. 

"My memory isn't that bad, Stark." He forces his thumb to still. They need to be close for warmth, and Bucky would rather not make Stark uncomfortable until the storm is over. Besides, he wouldn't be offering if it were anyone else. All of New York knew there was no one at home getting close like this with Stark and Bucky is discovering that he likes it too much not to exploit that to both of their benefits. 

"Okay," he says, audibly doubting Bucky's sanity, " _ why? _ "

Because when he'd said cuddling he hadn't meant it - certainly not in the soft, sweet way Stark is curl up against him, avoiding the tender junction of the prosthetic, like the only way he knew to be close to anyone was to open himself up completely and become totally vulnerable. Because it's woken up something needy and yearning in Bucky's chest that he's a little afraid to look too closely at, just in case it's been incubating there for a long while, or might have the shape of something he can't keep a leash on. Because he has this crazy idea that billions aside, Stark doesn't have a lot of the nice things that are good for heart and soul, and Bucky isn't a nice thing but he wants, a little bit at least, to try. 

"'cos this might be a step up from my Friday nights during the war, but it still sucks," he says. "A night in sounds more my pace."

"This really is the most surreal night of my life," Stark says in the kind of tone one might use while watching a train wreck. 

He didn't sound uncomfortable precisely, but many, many layers of Bucky are still keen to the careful sort of double talk necessary in polite society - and less polite, government overthrowing society. He shifts his hand up off Stark's shoulder. 

"Hey, where are you going? No one told you to go anywhere," Stark says indignantly. "Put that thing back where it was or so help me." He waits until Bucky settles his hand back where it had been, the insulated suit still warm to the touch. "I said it was surreal, I didn't say it was  _ bad. _ Necessarily." 

"Alright," Bucky says easily. "You let me know when you've figured that out." 

"Is that how we're playing it? It's not every day I'm hit on by a man old enough to be my father." 

Bucky isn't stupid, so he's not touching that one with a ten foot pole. What he does do is shift up off the flat of his back, tilting into Stark's body. There's more shuffling than should be necessary until they settle again, Bucky tugging the canvas tighter around their necks while Stark loops his arm around the left side of his waist, still well clear of the arm. He half expects this to satiate that weird ravening hunger in his skin, but it only grows sharper, still. He might not be the only one with how Stark is pressing into him, leveraging his leg between Bucky's. Or it could just be that Stark is trying to stay warm. His hair smells like fancy product and salt and snow; his breath tickles Bucky's jaw, where his uniform finally ends high up around his neck, like a collar. 

"Yeah, well, I ain't got a lot to lose, pride included," Bucky says at last. "Figure it can't hurt to ask for something if it sounds good enough."

"Yeah, that's - that's not a technique that worked out for me," Stark says. "Tried it, once or twice. Got mixed results." 

"Ain't that the truth," Bucky agrees, even though mostly he's never asked for a lot. Certainly nothing as big as Stark's ever asked for. Steve is the only person Bucky's ever asked for something from, and Steve is shit at listening to requests when they aren't what he wants to do in the first place. His thumb brushes over soft, warm skin, and Stark shudders. "I gamble for lower stakes 'n you, though, so I figure it can't hurt to try - for some things, anyway." 

The next couple of breaths that Stark takes are so careful, he might as well have broken ribs. Maybe not ribs, but a sternum. Bucky's eyes unwillingly flick over to the silent Iron Man suit, the power source in it's chest belatedly bared only  _ after _ Stark had pulled the entire thing open. Or maybe the shape of the thing swimming up in Stark's lungs is something he doesn't have context for.

"Hey," he says, low and gentle, and is surprised at himself. He hadn't known he could still sound like that. He pulls Stark closer still, or more like plasters him against his chest as they're already chest-to-chest as it is. "I didn't mean anything by it."

"Um," Stark says into his chest, his fingertips patting erratically against Bucky's ribs, "we're - we actually aren't having a moment here, you know, just for - just for your information." 

"'course we're not," Bucky says easily, "War Machine would kill me if I took advantage of your vulnerable state to become your friend or something equally nefarious."

" _ Who's _ \- I am not vulnerable," Stark says indignantly. "This is not me in a vulnerable state!"

Doesn't feel that way - not for either of them, really. It's slightly terrifying, like the butcher's tool bolted to the left side of his rib cage might somehow unravel Stark into a mess of blood and broken bone. Something like that would destroy Bucky in this moment, and ever after this moment - killing someone would be bad enough, but after everything, after what Bucky's been thinking, killing Stark might be a step too far to recover from. 

He hadn't come here or invited this with the intention of humanizing Stark anymore than he had to, or realizing how badly he wants to, or that he could want to be human with Stark. Stark wouldn't know what to do with him, he thinks, but he'd  _ try, _ probably. He would try and it could be nice. 

"Uh-huh," he says, instead of any of those unwelcome realizations. 

"You're patronizing me. Why are you patronizing me?" Stark shifts up to stare at him narrowly. "I should be a lot more bothered by you patronizing me than I am. Why am I not bothered by it?" 

Bucky rolls his eyes. "Me not wanting to argue with you isn't the same as patronizing you. Now get back down, you're letting out the heat." He's honestly at a loss here, but at least it seems like he's in good company. 

Stark squints at him for a long moment before reluctantly sinking back down. He obligingly wiggles his shoulders into position when Bucky tucks the edge of the canvas around his neck again. A draft makes it under the canvas before Bucky has it in place, and Stark shivers sharply. 

"Not that this isn't nice, Otter Pop, but I'm gonna install a heater in my flight suit," he grumbles. "Next time, it won't come to terrible soap opera cliches. Do they even make soap operas anymore? I feel like I should buy out the stations and cancel them as soon as I get back to civilization." 

"That's between you and your non-combatant status," Bucky says. "I'll miss it, but we'll always have the Shed in the Middle of the Corn Field."

"Casablanca." Stark says it in a kind of defeated tone, like the evening had gotten so surreal he's being forced to disassociate entirely. It's how Bucky feels about most of his life, so he sympathizes. "Really? Why are you like this? Who did this to you?"

"Sam, but all the years of brainwashing didn't help much," he quips. Sam also has started telling him he can't keep blaming everything on being brainwashed, but Bucky would like to see him try stopping him. 

"Wilson. Of course it'd be Wilson. You do realize he has it out for you, right?" He lifts his head to roll his eyes. "Well, I say 'out for you,' but less in a head-hunting terrorist way, and more in a 'trying to stop you from killing yourself' way, which - that. That doesn't sound good, I realize, but." 

"I can handle Sam. I know what sibling rivalry looks like," he says, which is a weird way of thinking of it, but it's the first thing that comes to mind. He can probably handle Stark, too. Steve never did have the knack of figuring out what was going on when someone said one thing and did another. To be fair, there wasn't a lot of opportunity for him to learn; everyone had always been too happy to tell him what they thought of him to his face. No wonder Stark drives him up a wall. 

"That explains  _ so much. _ " Stark sounds a bit blurry around the edges, the last edges of tension easing out; he's increasingly becoming dead weight sprawled over Bucky, heavy but hardly an inconvenience the way it would have been if he'd been only human. For a moment, Bucky worries about things like head injury, or his heart, or internal bleeding, or any of the many and varied things that can go wrong in combat, even when you're piloting an advanced suit of armor. Stark's heart still beats plenty strong against the heel of the palm that Bucky presses against Stark's back; not injury, exhaustion. It  _ had _ been an extended engagement, and Stark's not so young anymore. 

"Right," Stark mumbles after a moment, bone-weary and drifting. "Great. I'm just gonna - I'm going to take a nap. Wake me up when the storm passes or rescue arrives or. Whatever." 

"Sure," Bucky agrees, shifting his arm down from Stark's shoulder to rest around his waist to hold him secure. Rhodes might very well try to kill him when they make it back and he finds out his friend deemed Bucky suitable for napping on. Bucky's spent more of his life with people trying to kill him than not, though, so he's pretty sure he can handle it. It could be worth it. 

Outside the shed, the wind continues to howl - but inside, under the canvas, it's warm enough to suit him just fine. 

**Author's Note:**

> lmao otter pops
> 
> no tony and bucky fic is complete without narrative referring to steve and rhodey tbh, these co-dependents smfh

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [look alive (move)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12376902) by [themikeymonster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/themikeymonster/pseuds/themikeymonster)




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